I spend too much time checking weather charts - if I know the surf's going to get good, I'm clicking the refresh button on the web a couple of minutes before the next forecast model gets posted onto the Web. If its looking good then I'll check back again just to make sure. I'm going to blog weather on here and try to explain what's going on. These ramblings will focus on an area from Roche westwards although I reserve the right to go off piste occasionally.

Saturday, 26 January 2013

Deep dipper

You don't get lows as low as this often. 930mb - I was speaking to one of the top brains at ECMWF at a wind forecasting shindig in Paris during in the Autumn he was taking about the big Atlantic storms being every bit as devastating as the tropical hurricanes. If this beast would have been travelling through the English Channel or through Biscay into Northern Europe it would be remembered as a storm of notable proportions and probably have gone on to swipe dozens of people from the planet. Thankfully then, its whirring away where it should be, miles from anywhere and the worst the hurricane force winds at its epicentre are doing is whipping up an almighty swell.

This is the lunchtime surface analysis from the German Met Office (DWD), hand drawn and a magnificent piece of work if you like these kind of things.

It's a beast alright, and there is some serious rain on the way over the next fortnight or so, as the south-westerlies conveyor up moist warm air from the subtropics. The surf options look like being simple - it's a case of heading around the corner up here in Cornwall or head somewhere further south and soak up the longer period juice for a week or so (the chance would be a fine thing). The north Africans will be having a field day.